WILTSHIRE Council’s plan for the next 15 years of development in Wiltshire’s towns and villages has been criticised in an open letter signed by 25 organisations.

Representatives from the groups, including civic trusts and parish councils, handed in their objections to Cllr Toby Sturgis, cabinet member for the environment, at County Hall on Monday afternoon as the consultation on the Core Strategy came to a close.

The plan sets out where the council would like to see future housing, commercial and industrial developments to meet the needs of a growing Wiltshire until 2026.

Protestors say that the scale and location of development proposed in the draft document is inappropriate. Building 37,000 new homes across Wiltshire, with 20,000 houses concentrated in North and West Wiltshire over the next 15 years, would they say, lead to massive housing estates on green field sites and more traffic congestion and pollution, as well as declining town centres.

Mr McDonic, who is also a former planning inspector and chairman of the Wiltshire branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, said: “The council’s plan is not justified by evidence to support the extremely large allocations of housing and employment land. In economic and planning terms it simply does not stack up.”

The plan will have to be consulted on a second time before a government inspector pours over the detail in the strategy next year.

Full story in this week's Gazette and Herald.